Food Customs

The Buyi people mainly live in Guizhou Province in southwest China. The rest live scattered in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi and other provinces. The Buyi people mainly focus on agriculture and have a long history of planting rice.

Buyi people eat two meals a day when they are free and three meals a day when they are busy. The staple food is rice and corn, supplemented by wheat, sorghum, potato and beans. There are various varieties such as cooking rice in wooden pots and tripod pots, braised rice in oil, Erhe rice (rice mixed with corn), rice cakes, rice noodles, bait cubes, pea flour, rice cold cakes, etc. Among them, glutinous rice dumplings, flower rice and sesame oil dumplings are the most famous, and are mostly used to worship ancestors or entertain guests.

Their meat mainly comes from livestock and poultry, and they also like to prey on squirrels, bamboo rats and bamboo insects. The cooking methods are mostly roasting, boiling, bursting, deep-frying, pickling, and freezing. Generally, raw food is not eaten.

The Buyi people are very fond of dog meat, and there is a saying that "fat sheep are not as good as thin dogs". When a distinguished guest comes to your home, killing a dog as a treat is a very high courtesy. Their criteria for selecting dogs are "yellow, black, and three-flowered, and white dogs have the most bland meat taste." Roasted and stewed dog meat, dog enema, and Huajiang dog meat are all famous. The Buyi people in Guizhou like to use cattle for cooking during weddings and funerals.

Cold dishes, "frozen meat with moss", "jelly mixed with peas", etc. are the favorite foods of Buyi people. Sauerkraut and sour soup are essential for almost every meal, especially women. Most of the Buyi people are good at making pickles, bacon and tempeh. The unique folk pickle "hydrochloric acid" is famous both at home and abroad. There are also blood tofu, sausages and flavored dishes made from dried and fresh bamboo shoots and various insects. He is also good at preparing spicy noodles, spicy noodles and kimchi, which are delicious with fresh, sour and spicy flavors.

Wine plays an important role in the daily life of the Buyi people. After the autumn harvest every year, every family brews a large amount of rice wine and stores it for drinking all year round. The Buyi people like to entertain guests with wine. No matter how much the guests drink, as long as the guests arrive, wine is served first, which is called "welcome wine". When drinking, use a bowl instead of a cup, and follow the rules of guessing and singing.

There is a kind of tea in the Buyi area that not only has a unique taste, but also has a very nice name. This is Girl’s Tea. On the eve of the Qingming Festival (a traditional Chinese sacrifice and tomb-sweeping festival), girls go up the mountain to collect the tender tea tips, stir-fry them to maintain a certain humidity, then fold the tea leaves into cones one by one, dry them in the sun, and then process them to make a tea. The girl rolling a cone has tea. Girl's tea is not only beautiful in shape, but also of excellent quality. It is a fine product among teas. This tea is only given to friends and relatives. When falling in love or getting engaged, the girl gives it to her lover. Girls make tea, girls pick it, and girls make it. This is where the name girl tea comes from.

New Year's Day Food Customs

Some festivals are similar to those of the Han people, while others are unique to this ethnic group, such as "Lie Nian" (the last day of the first lunar month), March 3 (the third day of the lunar month) Silkworm Festival), April 8th (Ox King Festival), June 6th (Pangu Sacrifice), Eating New Year Festival, etc. Among them, "boiled raw food" is eaten on the ninth day of the first lunar month, "sesame oil dumplings" are eaten on the 30th day of the first lunar month, "baoguhua" is eaten on March 3rd, "four-color glutinous rice" is eaten on April 8th, and "boiled chicken" is eaten on June 6th. Most of them are related to national legends and rural education.

Customs of banquets

The Buyi people pay great attention to courtesy and hospitality. When a distinguished guest arrives, there must be "wine at the door", "wine in hand", "gedang wine", "turn round wine", There are six wine gifts including "a thousand glasses of wine" and "a farewell wine". If you offer pork, you wish the guests a good harvest in the coming year. If you offer chicken, the chicken head is given to the first guest, which symbolizes good luck. The chicken wings are given to the second guest, which means taking off, and the chicken legs are given to the third guest, which means being down to earth. During the banquet, "Toast Song" and "Midnight Supper Song" are also sung. The former is to encourage people to drink wine, while the latter is to sing all the items and food on the table, showing their intelligence and talent.

Staple food

The staple food is mostly rice. Folks like to use a special cooking utensil "Zengzi" to steam rice into rice. Buyi people generally like to eat glutinous rice, and often regard it as a staple food to improve their lives or adjust their taste. Cold dishes, "frozen meat with moss", "jelly mixed with peas", etc. are the favorite foods of Buyi people. Buyi people like sour and spicy food, so sauerkraut, sour soup and chili are essential for almost every meal, especially women. There are also blood tofu, sausages and flavored dishes made from dried and fresh bamboo shoots and various insects.

Pickled vegetables

Most Buyi people are good at making pickled vegetables, cured meat and tempeh. The unique folk pickled vegetables "hydrochloric acid" is famous both at home and abroad. Among the meat dishes, dog meat, dog enema and beef soup pot are the top dishes. (Some members of the Buyi ethnic group do not eat dog meat because dogs once saved their ancestors.) When slaughtering pigs, the Buyi people are accustomed to putting more salt in the blood basin and then stirring it with the pig's blood to prevent the pig's blood from coagulating. Add chopped green onion, condiments, add minced meat and boil the soup. When the soup cools to room temperature, stir and dilute it with pig blood, store it until it solidifies, and then it is ready to eat. It is called "raw blood" or "activating blood" and is the best dish for entertaining guests. . The Buyi people in Guizhou like to use scalpers to cook when they are attending weddings or funerals.

Welcoming Wine

Wine plays an important role in the daily life of the Buyi people. After the autumn harvest every year, every household brews a large amount of rice wine (lunch wine) and stores it for drinking all year round. The Buyi people like to entertain guests with wine. No matter how much the tourists drink, as long as the guests arrive, wine will be served first, which is called "welcome wine". When drinking, use a bowl instead of a cup, and follow the rules of guessing and singing.

Traditional snacks

The Buyi people have many traditional snacks, especially the Buyi people living in Yunnan, who are good at making rice noodles, bait cubes, pea flour, rice cold cakes, etc.

Buyi people’s special food

The Buyi people are generous and hospitable, which is characterized by eating on February 2, March 3, April 8, Dragon Boat Festival and Saturday in the lunar calendar every year. On April 8th, many Buyi people use various plant branches and leaves such as liquidambar leaves, yellow rice flowers, and dyed bamboo flowers to dye their glutinous rice into colorful colors to make flower glutinous rice. The rice is served to guests and distributed to relatives and friends. The traditional dances of the Buyi people include "Bronze Drum Dance", "Weaving Dance", "Lion Dance", "Sugar Bag Dance", etc.

Buyi Love Song Duoling Opera (6 photos)

Sona, Yueqin, Dongxiao, Muye, Dizi, etc. are popular operas of the Buyi people. There are two singing forms with a polyphonic structure in southern Guizhou; pange uses singing to interrogate each other and ask each other according to circumstances. The oral literature spread by the people includes myths, legends, stories, and fables. , proverbs and poems, etc. The Buyi homespun cloth woven by the farmers themselves has long been famous. In recent years, companies specializing in the production of Buyi brocade, batik cloth and ethnic craft clothing have been established, and their products are exported to Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe and the United States.

The Buyi music "Bayin Sitting Sing" in southwestern Guizhou is known as the "living fossil of sound" and the "sound of nature"